Japan warming to Blu-ray, sales break six-figures in June
[Image courtesy of DayLife]
[Image courtesy of DayLife]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dave @ Jul 23rd 2008 2:14PM
At this rate is no wonder why BD will cost sub $100 by the end of the winter :)
THizzle7XU @ Jul 23rd 2008 8:24PM
Hey! Right about the time for the next HD-DVD to come out...oh, right.
Okeygrak @ Jul 23rd 2008 2:30PM
I've beginning to think that you are either :
a ) An scripted auto-bot that near instantaneously posts premeditated nonsensical and pathetically motivated anti-bluray banter; relentlessly.
or
b ) A pathetically sad mental midget whose opinions on this site could not be any more worthless.
Can the other readers here vote in on this one?
Anthony Kristler @ Jul 23rd 2008 2:42PM
Okeygrak ...
I think Nfinity is a sad sad little man that has lost his only true friend... Toshiba and he is such a sad little man that he is unable to grasp the one true thing that will change his meaningless existance.
..
....
......
ACCEPT REALITY!!!!!
BLU_RAY!!! WON!!!!
Buy a player and movies and.. you know what.....
AND SHUT UP!!!!
whew.... wow I feel better :)
Gus @ Jul 23rd 2008 11:02PM
JDS, GFYS!
Alex @ Jul 23rd 2008 2:59PM
ummm I thought that many players were sold in Japan last year, what happened
Mr. E @ Jul 24th 2008 1:34AM
From the linked article, talking about the Japanese market: "Shipments of recorders and players based on Blu-ray Disc hit 122,000 in June marking the first time that monthly shipments have broken into six-figures."
Blu-ray hardware sales already passed sales of DVD-only players in Japan, back in May '08. With this large June increase in Blu-ray sales, it's obvious that it's twilight for DVD in the Land of the Rising Sun, no matter what other lies you see posted in the comments.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/05/28/blu-ray-sales-see-massive-increase-finally-outselling-dvd/
Paul Deckard @ Jul 23rd 2008 3:01PM
I simply do not understand why everyone keeps responding to Nfinity. If you want him to go away, don't reply and he will! You're playing into his hands and he's loving it!
Anthony Kristler @ Jul 23rd 2008 3:05PM
You are right Paul.. dang it ... I should of ignored him, it is just he is so.. IRRITATING, not since he is intelligent or anything it is just he is so hard headed or just hollow headed :)
JDS @ Jul 23rd 2008 3:23PM
nfinity
if "you're lovin it" then you are pathetically starved for attention.......psychological disorder???
and change your avatar back to hello kitty you pussy
BMZ @ Jul 23rd 2008 3:22PM
Nfinity: you are being overly negative--If BR reduced both their player and disc prices and improved its performance, I bet that it would sell almost as well as HD DVD.
JimC @ Jul 23rd 2008 3:32PM
Nfinity, baiting insults typically should be viewed just as bad as an insulting comment. You know you're just coming on here to bait attacks. You have nothing of substance to say except that "Blu-ray bad, HD DVD, err.. I mean DVD upscaled...err I mean, Digital Downloads are good."
At this point, if I were moderating this blog, if you had nothing of substance to add then your comments would be deleted. The definition of a troll has your face next to it.
Tom @ Jul 23rd 2008 3:57PM
I'll gladly accept a banning for saying this but I think I speak on behalf of everyone around here when I say to you Nfinity:
Please just shut the fuck up already and go away plz thx.
borland502 (SDF Macross) @ Jul 23rd 2008 4:21PM
"Maybe they think you generate more page views or something?"
He does. Take a look at any article like this one and a good percentage of replies are to him or Truthteller. I'm as guilty of indulging him as any. I just wish the two notable anti-blu ray guys weren't mentally ill. Most subjects benefit from an opposing viewpoint.
Leonardo DiCrapio @ Jul 23rd 2008 10:03PM
"On the Betamax side were SONY, TOSHIBA, Sanyo, NEC, Aiwa, and Pioneer. On the VHS side were JVC, Matsushita (Panasonic), Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Sharp, and Akai."
Betamax lost. HD DVD lost.
Blu-Ray won because of the Playstation 3.
Nfinity, get over it. Your side lost. If you are satisfied with a fixed number of a couple hundred of HD DVD's (that you will have to own in the future to insure access to them), then that is just great for you. You are a moron if you think that having only a few hundred potential high-definition titles to watch is a satisfying experience.
Blu-Ray will have thousands of title in a year or two. As I've told you before, Nfinity, with every passing day you become more and more irrelevant.
BTW, Nfinity, I said one million copies of the Dark Knight Blu-Ray discs will be sold in the first week after it is released. Dark Knight should sell a few more million Blu-Ray discsin the year after its release as Blu-Ray players become more affordable.
borland502 (SDF Macross) @ Jul 23rd 2008 4:05PM
"...the fact that you don't like the reality of things and consider that baiting is really your problem."
Then let me illustrate his point with a simple example:
"122k sales (up from 88k) doesn't really indicate much progress in Blu Ray penetration in Japan since that should be their strongest market. The figures are still too low make the claim that Japan is "warming to Blu-Ray"
Now let's filter it through your brain:
"122,000 in Japan.. SHOCKINGLY GOOD NEWS.. not! LOL...blackmail...I'm just hoping that real Blu-Ray fans are spending their money...slap in the face...epic fail...pathetic...lies"
Honestly, you could have the solution to world peace and you'd phrase it in such a way as to provoke WWIII.
squiggleslash @ Jul 24th 2008 5:35AM
I've been wondering for a while if Nfinity is employed by some Blu-ray promotion group to discredit BD's rivals, and someone forgot to stop paying him after HD DVD was withdrawn...
DrXym @ Jul 23rd 2008 4:50PM
The Japanese really love their recordable optical media. Can't say I'd buy a BD recorder any more than a DVD recorder, unless there was an HDD too for all the stuff I don't intend to keep but they seem to love them.
It also interesting to note these BD recorders are outselling the PS3 by nearly ten-fold in Japan. Maybe Sony should get a clue and deck the PS3 out with recording capabilities. It certainly demonstrates the fact that the PS3 is not always the driving force for sales, and its importance will diminish as the number of standalones increase.
Mr. E @ Jul 24th 2008 1:39AM
You're right, Dr. Apparently the Japanese really prefer BD recorders to standalone players. I guess if we (the U.S.) had the ability to transfer much of our recorded shows to BD for archiving, I'd be really interested in one too. Sad how we went from the VCR, where we could archive to our heart's content, to a system where we can't archive jack.
I totally agree about the PS3. The release of the Sony BDP-350 at (initially) the same price as the PS3, but soon to be heavily discounted, means the days of the PS3 being the cheapest full-featured player are already behind us forever.
Mark @ Jul 24th 2008 4:36AM
@Nfinity If the Japanese are buying recorders at the rate they are then the format is selling faster than the Nintendo Wii. At this rate they'll exceed one million recorder / players this year alone in Japan. Maybe this qualifies as a failure in your mind, but as you appear to be in the middle of an epic meltdown and full blown denial, this is of no real consequence. Its hard to see even why you are getting so worked up about it if you own 100 blu discs as you've claimed in the past. You weren't lying by any chance about that were you?
BT @ Jul 23rd 2008 5:36PM
don't feed the troll people, let him be.............and we can discuss this amongst ourselves.
Mr. E @ Jul 24th 2008 1:42AM
I agree. I used to take them on, when the format war was raging, but I refuse to glorify their ongoing, baseless vitriol any further. Let's just all vote them down where they belong and make on-topic, reasoned, and rational posts to actually contribute to this great site.
mt_rock @ Jul 23rd 2008 6:55PM
In Japan, the player is not popular.
Popularity has a recorder than a player in Japan.
The store sale shares of the BD recorder to occupy to all recorders have already exceeded 40%.
It is expected that shares of a BD recorder exceed 50% by the end of this summer.
The share of the BD recorder surpasses 60% in the sales volume.
xemumanic @ Jul 23rd 2008 8:02PM
That's the other thing I liked about Blu Ray when I first heard about it.....the ability to record. Its common in Japan, but not here. And no, don't bring up PC recorder drives. I don't mean that. There's lots of those. What I'm talking about are set top recorders.
I guess here in the US its all about the DVR and the disposable nature of media in the US. That's what I don't like about downloads.
jrtallen @ Jul 23rd 2008 10:43PM
Nfinity should apply for an editorial job at Audioholics.
Gus @ Jul 23rd 2008 11:01PM
I have a Panasonic DVD recorder with 160GB hard drive. It is without question one of the best CE products I have ever purchased.
My kids constantly record music and my wife is always taping TV shows.
I mainly use it for recording sport and converting old VHS tapes to DVDs.
I just don't understand why everyone doesn't own one, they are brilliant.
Mr. E @ Jul 24th 2008 1:45AM
I only watch HD any more, so a DVD recorder is of little use. But if there were some way for me to get a TiVo HD with built-in Blu-ray drive, which could archive any show to BD, I'd be all over it in a heartbeat! Unfortunately, the "powers that be" have decided that archiving shall nevermore be allowed in our high-def world. It just sucks, really.
Gus @ Jul 24th 2008 2:43AM
HD I can understand for movies and special events, but a DVD recorder with a HDD is IMO certainly good enough for day to day use.
Obviously I would prefer a HD recorder but not at the price point, they are ridiculous, and the home movies I now have on DVD are such a step up from VHS that they are certainly good enough for my needs.My kids couldn't care less if about the picture quality as long as it's loud Dad!
Maybe if a BR recorder is cheap enough I will buy one one day, but in the mean time I enjoy my DVD recorder so much, and it gets used so often, that i am considering a second recorder, they are extremely good value.
h0mi @ Jul 25th 2008 9:49AM
I havent owned or tried one of those but in using DVD recorders from other companies, my complaint is that the recordings from TV were barely above VHS quality. The tuner recording abilities were abysmal. And of course, now that I have HDTV, I'd want to record in HD.
Gus @ Jul 25th 2008 9:16PM
Homi, do yourself a favor and buy a Panasonic recorder. I can't speak for the other brands out there, but I cant praise these things high enough. The picture quality on mine is superb, honestly, there are some recordings that look every bit as good as HD, I have it paired to a very good Panasonic plasma as well which may help also.
I would love the Panasonic HD recording BR version, but where I live, it is $2,200 as opposed to $450 for the one I currently have. I am going to purchase a second one @ $450 and still have over $1000 in change!
h0mi @ Jul 24th 2008 1:20AM
There was nothing mainstream about HD-DVD. At all. Ever. All of those HD-DVD players flying off the shelves last year? It was people upgrading from mediocre version 1 players to take advantage of free HD-DVDs. Strange how they sold 100k players in 1 day at the $100 price point but somebody forgot to tell those people to, you know, buy an HD-DVD disc. None of them did.
"When the Dark Knight sells over 1 million Blu-Ray discs in its first week of sales later this year will you finally shut up, Nfinity?"
I would not count on this but Iron Man will be a good gauge to see how well TDK will do. I expect TDK to do much better than Iron Man does, and Iron Man should easily sell 400k or more discs. (I am Legend sold 300k).
Mark @ Jul 24th 2008 8:58AM
@h0mi, HD DVD tried to appeal to the mainstream but it wasn't mainstream. A new product is never mainstream. It has to appeal and be pitched to the early adopters and base grown from that. I think the blu camp played it smart, focussing their marketing on AV enthusiasts while seeding the general market with PS3s. It seems to have worked pretty well. Toshiba wasted its marketing on a largely indifferent segment, hoping that if they slashed the price and sold through Walmart they would become some kind of overnight sensation. Instead they just met with general indifference and pissed off their partners in the process by undercutting them. Onkyo was one partner and sold a pathetic 2000 units for their rebranded XA2 player. Venturer found their own A3 clone player undercut by the real A3. Toshiba screwed up their strategy big time. I don't blame completely. They could still have won if they'd bribed a few more studios to their side. Maybe blu paid out more to stop that happening or maybe retailers and studios just saw which side their bread was buttered on and decided to call a halt to proceedings. Whatever. It's all history and HD DVD was never, ever mainstream.
The future for blu is assured. It hasnt reached mainstream either yet but you can clearly see it happening. Every studio, hardware maker and store is poised for a massive seasonal marketing push on the format. Blu should have no trouble finding buyers either as HD is the defacto standard for new TVs. Walmart.com sells 6 SD TVs and 85 HD TVs. Next year the Chinese turn up with their own players. Once that happens the premium on blu ray will so small that it will become the default and DVD the legacy. People will still buy DVDs of course for years and years to come but I think it will get pushed further out into the fringes as time goes on. Just like VHS did before it.
mt_rock @ Jul 24th 2008 7:36AM
Why the HD DVD was died?
It is a simple reason.
The reason is because the user who supported HD DVD does not have ability for purchasing.
You should choose a guy having money if you rank a friend.
The guy without the money does not become a useful customer.
it become a useless fanatic to the utmost.
DVD4ME @ Jul 24th 2008 8:22AM
No, what Ben means is anyone who doesn't agree with his opinion, even if the comment is not aggressive, offensive or uses foul language like many posts here constantly. Apparently having an opinion that profile 2.0 should be a mandatory standard results in comments being pulled.
Otherwise, be abusive, swear your head off, and troll as much as you like.
Larry @ Jul 24th 2008 8:55AM
If this is "good news" for Blu-Ray then the format is in big trouble.
Mark @ Jul 24th 2008 9:01AM
DVD4ME, why should profile 2.0 be a mandatory standard? Why can't a consumer decide for themselves if they want internet or no internet amongst all the other features that distinguish one player model from another?
Truth Teller @ Jul 24th 2008 9:03AM
Oh dear, back to raking up HD DVD again are we?
Sooner or later you guys are going to have to quit hiding behind it and just discuss Blu-ray on its own terms.
We're approaching 3yrs in and all the excuses have long gone.
Darren can do his traditional soft-soap pro-PR job on every story he writes but it doesn't change the central point, Blu-ray is not doing particularly well anywhere.
Even the best that can be produced (Japan) underwhelms.
It's not entirely awful but it can hardly be described as 'good' either.
The reason HD DVD died (in the 'west') is simple, the PS3.
The PS3 gave Blu-ray a huge boost by being guaranteed to sell reasonably quickly in multi-million globally.
It meant that no matter how many movies the HD DVD buyer bought they were never going to match (in the short-term) even the casual buying habits of the PS3 owners.
I guess it also helped (and still does help) that the PS3 had/has such a pi$$-poor range of games.
It had nothing to do with HD DVD owners not buying movies
(although anyone reasonable could see that 7, 8 or even 10 freebie movies with each sale was going to put a buying lag in straight-away).
There's no secret to any of that - as the respective attachment rates showed.
Approx 10 million Blu-ray players (including PS3s) verses around or just under 1 million HD DVD players resulted in an average Blu-ray 'lead' of between 60:40 - 65:35.
This also saw with dips during the period of few HD DVD releases and the PS3 Euro launch of 80:20 and, thanks to Blu-ray BOGOF spoilers, as close a 51:49 with the Transformers launch.
Had Warner not signed exclusively to Blu-ray and had HD DVD prices continued to stay low and falling then by this stage I would expect the PS3s poor sales performance to be a growing factor by now.
Warner merely settled on the high margin, supposedly more 'secure', niche product and took a shed-load of cash to make up for what they may have missed out on, that's all.
The fact that they think they have (fast growing) China shunted sideways with a completely different format is also an important & considerable bonus to them all.
But of course this is all history now......though the revisions the Blu-ray fanclub seem desperate to promote are kind of funny.
Anything to boost the flagging appearance of their beloved, eh?
I've recently been buying some new kit (my Onkyo 875 is a real pleasure) and I have 1 vacant HDMI slot (no game consoles) but I really cannot bring myself to buy into Blu-ray......and believe me there are a couple of titles out & coming that have had me trying very hard.
But they really aren't 'there' yet at all.
They are still grossly over-priced (despite all the empty hot air about sub $200/£100 players), those that aren't sky-high priced are invariably laughably under-spec'd, the movies remain expensive and, contrary to the reports of some (here and in other places), they are also often still buggy and problematic.
......and no I do not want an over-priced, over-sized, juice-hungry, fugly game console.
The one compensation is that (judging by those Chinese licencing stories, along with the impact of the coming recession - which it should be remembered has yet to even hit properly) they are going to have to give up the high margin stance in the coming year or 2 (remember how long it took Toshiba to sign & then see some tangible product?).
Of course if that happens then they are just as likely to kill Blu-ray prematurely as a movie format too.
Now wouldn't that be ironic?
Anthony Kristler @ Jul 24th 2008 9:20AM
Truth Teller.... Yawnnnnn.. oh sorry did you say something???
Truth Teller @ Jul 24th 2008 10:04AM
Wow, you're funny.
I guess that's the limit your capable of contributing, eh?
So irrelevant and boring to you you bothered to post.
LMAO
.....and people have the cheek to bash nfinity!?
Pete @ Jul 24th 2008 10:10AM
Get a job, luddite
benny boy @ Jul 24th 2008 10:40AM
NFinity:
HD-DVD IS DEAD.
YOU NEED TO MOVE ON.
Anthony Kristler @ Jul 24th 2008 10:42AM
Truth.. the reason I didn't post anything relevant to the matter is that you (Truth Teller) and (Nfinity) are already joined at the hip. So when one eats the other eats :) I figure that you already had the other information and understood where I stand, so I didn't need to repeat myself; unlike when you spout off irrelevant information.
DrXym @ Jul 24th 2008 4:15PM
Nfinity, so are you going to verify these facts?
Let's go through your list:
1. "Super greedy high prices". Actually they're reflective of the cost of R&D, production, shipping, sale and profit. CEs reasonably want to make money on their investment. Retailers reasonable want to make a profit. The price reflects that. Players are already getting cheaper and will continue to get cheaper. Prices are little different in Blu Ray's life cycle from DVD in its day.
2. DRM. It is debateable whether it is DRM or copy protection. But it is utterly cretinous to hear objections about DRM from someone claiming we should all go digital. Aside from region encoding you can play discs on any blu ray player of your choosing, irrespective of manufacturer, irrespective of how many players you own, irrespective of registering the content. Any player. Now which digital download service are you advocating which has remotely comparable freedoms? Why are you even whinging about DRM when VHS, DVD and HD DVD all implemented copy protection or DRM in some form? You do realise HD DVD uses the same key management scheme as Blu Ray right?
3. Regional coding. Yeah so what? Approx 60% of discs don't even bother and its certainly better than DVD since there are less regions and less region encoding. It is also miles better than digital which some dumbasses advocate where region encoding is so locked down that it's not per region, but per country. If you get your downloads via your cable company it may even be restricted even further than that down to state level. Some stores won't even let you rent or download even if you own an account if you visit from outside your home country.
3. "Unfinished specifications". Bullshit. By such cretinous reasoning we shouldn't buy USB 1.1 or 2.0 devices because USB 3.0 is out there, we shouldn't buy Bluetooth 1.1 or 2.0 devices because 3.0 is out there and so on. Never mind that Blu Ray like other standards is backwards compatible. A more valid reason for not buying a profile 1.0 player is they tended to be 1st generation slow. Otherwise they play discs just fine. And that argument disappeared completely when 1.1 became mandatory. Maybe you didn't get the memo.
4. "Complete lack of replication fascilities". What? You assert Blu Ray is a flop and then claim it's lacking replication facilities which implies demand is outstripping supply. Which is it dumbass? Singulus have repeatedly stated orders are exceeding estimates indicating the market is rapidly growing.
You're just a lying dumbass with some kind of obsession with Blu Ray. Take a pill, or grow up or both.
h0mi @ Jul 25th 2008 12:32AM
"The thing that's going to be an excuse will be recession when Blu-Ray finally flops but in fact it's the super greedy high prices,"
Players are $300-$600, where HD-DVD was 1 year ago and are dropping.
" DRM,"
Both formats have DRM. DVD still has DRM. AACS is no better a DRM standard than BD+ due to key revocation.
"regional coding,"
Most blu-ray discs are not region coded. I don't like region coding but it's not as if HD-DVDs didn't have region coding for DVDs or the DVD side of things, and blu-ray at least went to fewer regions. The lack of region coding created a problem for studios like New Line.
"unfinished specifications"
Profile 2.0 and 1.1 are finished and were finished. 1.1 wasn't mandatory until November 1st however, and 2.0 is not a mandatory profile. Meanwhile TL-51 is every HD-DVD evangelicals' favorite piece of vaporware, followed by those triple layer combo discs. With fewer assurances that these discs would work in older players than 1.1 blu-ray discs in 1.0 players.
"and complete lack of replication fascilities that will kill Blu-Ray."
And this means what to joe blu-ray buyer? Higher disc prices? Less selection? Funny, in spite of all the replication sources in the world, that helped HD-DVD not 1 bit. Methinks you're overplaying this hand.
"Something we wouldn't be facing with HD DVD at all and would already had $100-$150 player with full specifications, network connectivity etc etc.."
They wouldn't cost $100-150 right now. They would be priced at a point where Toshiba could earn back some of that cash they burned through, otherwise every HD-DVD player would be a Toshiba one, and without more CE support, HD-DVD would never become "mainstream".
And "full specs" except for 1080p. That's $100 extra.
DVD4ME @ Jul 25th 2008 4:07AM
Mark, as I said, profile 2.0 being mandatory is my opinion, I think it should be standard as a major point of difference to DVD, proof if you will that it's a next generation player, and to sell a unit without it is, IMO, cheating the unwary consumer.
I'm not trying to force that on anyone one else, it's just my opinion which means nothing!
Mark @ Jul 25th 2008 4:53AM
@DVD4ME, I would agree profile 2.0 should be mandatory if there was compelling content or even potential compelling content in the future to look forward to. But there isn't. Nothing I have seen of BD Live or HD DVD's equivalent made me want to rush out and buy content with the feature. Mandating it just means that manufacturers and ultimately producers pay extra to add 1gb storage and ethernet for something that many have no intention of ever using. Maybe the situation will be different in a few years. Maybe the BDA should mandate 2.0 to kickstart the feature. Maybe Disney or WB will wow us with some amazing BD Live experience and we'll all be queuing up for profile 2.0 players.
For now I think it is a redundant feature.
h0mi @ Jul 25th 2008 9:48AM
@Leonardo DiCrapio HD-DVD wishes it were betamax. Betamax survived for 20 odd years as a Sony backed format that a handfull of people used for years to come. HD-DD folded like a house of cards after a studio announced 6 months later, it was going blu-ray exclusive. If Warner and a 2nd blu-ray studio had switched to HD-DVD instead, blu-ray would still exist well beyond 2009. This fanciful nonsense that HD-DVD could become more mainstream quicker is just laughable.